If the World Were Babylicious

A friend of mine once wrote that after she'd given birth she stared open-mouthed at other mothers passing her on the street, amazed at the amount of pain and struggle these otherwise ordinary women had endured to bring a child into the world. While I'm amazed at that too, I find that I'm even more fascinated by the fact that everyone, from President Bush to my landlord, Ray, was once a helpless baby.

I sit in meetings staring at the grownups in their business casual and think to myself, your mama once wiped your ass, and burped you, and if you were lucky, she worried about what kind of person you would reveal yourself to be and if you would grow up allright. I am equally amazed at the other people in these meetings who have children. I look at them and think, you know what it is to be spit up on at three in the morning; you too have inspected your child's dirty diapers and wondered if the color and consistency of his poop is okay; you understand what it feels like to be on the receiving end of endless uncontrollable crying.

And I find it amazing that all of us grownups, ex-babies, have learned to supress the baby inside. Because while Milo expresses every tiny little thing he is feeling every minute of the day, most people do not. I like to imagine a world where people in business meetings cry when they need to fart, where their colleagues come over and pat them on the back and whisper soothing words into their ears when their tummies hurt after lunch, where when you feel sleepy you can squish your face into your meal and fall asleep, mouth agape, a tiny trickle of nonfat latte running from the corner of your mouth, pooling under the collar of your golf shirt.